Universal Service Fund

The Federal Communications Commission announced a settlement with IBM for alleged violations of the FCC’s E-Rate program rules in connection with the New York City and El Paso school districts. IBM agreed to return $24.25 million to the Universal Service Fund. In past years, IBM provided communications services to the New York City Department of Education and the El Paso Independent School District in Texas using E-Rate subsidies.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has asked the Federal Communications Commission to reject efforts by West Virginia legislators to block Frontier Communications’ successful bid for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) funding. Frontier won $247 million to serve almost 79,000 locations in the state. It says that it will bring gigabit connectivity to many of those locations. The company is currently in bankruptcy, but expects to emerge in the first quarter of 2021.

Congress is set to pass a $900 billion Covid-19 aid bill. The legislation includes $7 billion for broadband. 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently completed its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. The goal of the auction was to bring to rural areas across the United States the same affordable and reliable broadband service enjoyed in many urban and suburban areas. A review of the results of the auction shows it is unlikely the FCC attained its goal—and for America’s rural communities, the ongoing uncertainty is likely to persist for some time. CTC Technology & Energy analysis of the RDOF results points to a few key takeaways for local communities:

David Sumi is vice president of marketing for Siklu, a fixed wireless equipment manufacturer that was part of a group of manufacturers that convinced the Federal Communications Commission to allow Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) fixed wireless bids for the gigabit tier. According to Sumi, there have been a lot of advances in fixed wireless recently. He described two Siklu offerings that could be used for gigabit fixed wireless deployments and noted that other manufacturers have similar offerings.

In 2018, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and the Office of Engineering and Technology (collectively, the Bureaus) adopted performance requirements establishing a uniform framework for measuring speed and latency performance for recipients of high-cost support to serve fixed locations. Later, the Bureaus addressed certain issues regarding testing to be conducted by high-latency bidders in the Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II auction.

When the Federal Communications Commission announced $312 million in grants for one relatively small company to build broadband in Minnesota, it stirred controversy among those who worry the internet provider can’t deliver what it promised. Now that squabble over the company, LTD Broadband, has spilled over into Minnesota’s own grant program for development of high-sp

One of the first priorities of 2021 should be to enable schools and libraries to use E-Rate to help students and patrons get online from home. To support these extensions is to uphold the program’s founding principles of universal service and access. So what is the hold up? For one, Congress can barely figure out how to pass its annual appropriations bills. Although there is a chance that E-Rate changes could come in the final push for COVID-19 relief legislation, relying on lawmakers typically means waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), both members of the Senate Commerce Committee, introduced the Every Child Connected Act—legislation that aims to reduce the digital divide between students with and without internet access, known as the Homework Gap. Specifically, the legislation accomplishes this goal by targeting available funding sources from Federal Trade Commission data privacy violations to provide vital connectivity to American students at home. The Every Child Connected Act would: 

A bipartisan group of senators and representatives unveiled highlights of the $748 billion Bipartisan COVID-19 Emergency Relief Act of 2020. Provisions for broadband include: